We all have those friends, you know, who seem to have their phones glued to their hand and are way more interested in the latest Nutella food video, on Facebook, than your actual, real-life conversation. So annoying, right? Never mind annoying, it's rude. OK, maybe you're guilty of being one of those friends; admittedly, we're all guilty of being one of those friends from time-to-time. All it takes is a simple 'sorry, I really need to send this e-mail right now' and the social balance is restored. You know, actually speaking to people.

Never mind being in an active social situation; there are plenty of times where we are given the opportunity to speak to people, yet we choose our phones instead. For example, you would think that during a break in community choir, people would take the time to socialize and interact with each other; instead, for the most part, everyone retreats to their phones.

OK, perhaps everyone's brains are too tired from singing Brahms for the past hour and the prospect of having to use more energy to start an actual conversation seems exhausting. Maybe, that's the problem; information is available, and moves so quickly, that our brains have become over-saturated with "stuff," leaving us too exhausted to have conversations that don't involve a keyboard.

A few weeks ago, the Internet provider went down. For those few hours, time basically stood still for anyone on campus. Watching people trying to have actual conversations with each other was like watching an animal, raised in a zoo, being placed back into the wild. Some people were so bewildered by the lack of internet that they gave up and decided to nap instead.

I challenge everyone reading this: next time you are with your friends, watch how many times you go to pick up our phone. Think about what you were actually about to use your phone for and ask yourself: Am I being anti-social right now? If you were literally about to scroll through Facebook, for the sake of it, then the answer to the second question would be "yes."

I'm not suggesting that social media is a negative tool, or scrolling through Facebook isn't useful when you're trying to kill time. I'm suggesting that when we're given the opportunity to interact with people on a personal level, we do just that. Put down your phone and pay attention to the world in front of you. Let's beat the millennial "digital curse"; let's reconnect.